Transactive Energy: State-of-the-Art in Control Strategies, Architectures, and Simulators

The concept of transactive energy (TE) in smart grid systems is gaining increased research attention for its potential to optimize distributed energy resources, improve system reliability, as well as provide a balanced ecosystem for fair economic transaction between prosumers. TE is defined by the GridWise Architecture Council as a system of economic and control mechanisms that allows the dynamic balance of supply and demand across the entire electrical infrastructure using value as a key operational parameter. With control mechanisms being a key part of TE systems, in this article, we discuss the state-of-the-art in TE control strategies, architectures, and relevant simulators for designing, evaluating, and analysing TE systems. Most importantly, existing TE control strategies are examined and discussed via a hierarchical structure comprising four different levels wherein TE control strategies/controllers can be deployed. Architecture-wise, we highlight the different types of TE architectures including the centralized, decentralized, distributed, and hierarchical architecture. In terms of existing and potential simulators for designing and evaluating TE models, we discuss and compare notable software across different characteristics of interest. We conclude this article by highlighting the basic components of a typical TE controller and other future research directions spanning across security concerns, privacy issues, communication challenges, simulation and validation demands. As a main contribution, different from existing survey articles, this article presents a synthesis of existing works regarding TE control strategies, architectures, and TE-based simulators for the benefit of the budding researcher whose interest may lie in the study of TE systems.